I'm a writer, publishing both as SJ Rozan and, with Carlos Dews, as Sam Cabot. (I'm Sam, he's Cabot.) Here you can find links to my almost-daily blog posts, including the Saturday haiku I've been doing for years. BUT the blog itself has moved to my website. If you go on over there you can subscribe and you'll never miss a post. (Miss a post! A scary thought!) Also, I'll be teaching a writing workshop in Italy this summer -- come join us!

This from the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, so you can know where to be next Thurs., Jan 13. You can know all kinds of other cool things if you click the link, too.

Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth to Sweep Into New York Harbor

Three maritime monarchs in full regalia -- Cunard's flagship RMS Queen Mary 2, the MS Queen Victoria and the new MS Queen Elizabeth -- will gather near the Statue of Liberty around 6pm on January 13. This is only the second time in Cunard's history that its three ships have met in New York. The first meeting of the monarchs occurred in January 2008, when the QM2 and the QV converged to bid the Queen Elizabeth 2 farewell as she steamed out of NYC toward retirement in Dubai.

This is the maiden voyage of the new QE to New York. She is not known as the QE3 because she is a "Motor Ship;" hence the "MS" before her name. The original Queen Elizabeth and the QE2 were classified as RMS -- "Royal Mail Ship" -- vessels, a designation that referrs to the way mail used to cross the Atlantic.

When built in 2003, the QM2 was the largest ocean liner in the world; that superlative was taken from her three years later with the debut of Royal Caribbean International's Freedom of the Seas. At 1,132 feet, the QM2 is five times longer than Cunard's first ship, Britannia (230 ft.). She announces her royal presence with a blast from a powerful whistle. An A, two octaves below middle A, the QM2's whistle, aka "horn," can be heard ten miles away. Of her three whistles, one is from the Queen Mary of 1936.

Grucci fireworks will add to the pageantry starting around 6:45pm. The best viewing opportunities for landlubbers are the esplanade of Battery Park, southern Battery Park City at Wagner Park and the Jersey City promenade.